Pokémon Tournaments

The concept of the guys at Namco Bandai's Tekken coming together with The Pokemon Company/Nintendo to build a Pokemon version of Tekken is, on paper, so insane sounding that despite multiple indications over the past year that exactly that was happening, even the most open minded of us found it hard to commit to the theory.

So it probably doesn't really add up that I would espouse that the upcoming, actually being made, game could possibly be the best thing the series has done since the height of the original launch. But I am.

After a grand weekend of battling our video game and trading card game world champions for 2014 have been decided. Our champions for this year are as follows:

Video Game Champions:

Junior divison champion - Kota Yamamoto

Senior divison champion - Nikolai Zielinski

Master division champion - Se Jun Park

Trading Card Game Champions:

Junior divison champion - Haruto Kobayashi

Senior divison champion - Trent Orndorff

Master divison champion - Andrew Estrada

The players took their well earned titles after a weekend of tough and exciting battles across both the VGC and TCG divisions. Pokémon.com streamed the whole event on their Twitch channel and highlights from the weekend can still be watched there. If you're interested then you can check the channel out right here. It's worth watching out for the rather awesome Pachirisu that Se Jun Park uses...

Our second major news from the Pokémon World Championships has just come thanks to Masuda officially revealing Mega Slowbro after the Pokémon leaked earlier this week.

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During the opening ceremony for the event Masuda officially revealed Mega Slowbro, and while he commented that he may not be the first to show us the Pokémon, he is the first to show us footage of it in battle. The trailer can be seen above.

We don't really cover the anime or the TCG here a lot at Pokecharms, so why not break that mould a little bit with a two for one deal?

The new Furious Fists TCG set launched today, and to celebrate it, the Pokemon Company has uploaded a couple of new adverts that'll be playing out for it, including a specially produced anime scene detailing the biggest names in the set:

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There's also a slightly less appealing advert with some dodgy 3D models if you want to also check that out.

The focus on Mega Lucario in the set would come as no real surprise, as the card is more or less an I-win kind of play, but the other Pokemon mentioned in the advert are also ones to keep an eye out for at events such as Nationals and Worlds. Due to rules introduced this year, however, Furious Fists will not be...

The official website for the Pokémon World Championships 2014 is now open. This year's event is being held in Washington DC across the 16th and 17th of August. Alike last year the event will be streamed via the Pokémon Twitch channel.

On the Saturday the Twitch channel will be streaming select TCG and VGC matches over the course of the day. On Sunday the channel will be streaming the top six matches of every age division for the TCG and VGC letting us see who is crowned the champion of each division this year.

It has also been revealed that trainers attending the event will be able to download an Aegislash. The Aegislash will know the moves Wide Guard, King's Shield, Shadow Ball, and Flash Cannon and be at Level 50 and holding a Sitrus Berry.

The latest in the International Challenge series of Wi-Fi tournaments for Pokémon X and Pokémon Y has been announced. This tournament is the 2014 International Challenge - May and will open registration on the 8th of May until the 15th of May. Battles will then take place from the 16th of May until midnight on the 18th of May.

The tournament will be using the Video Game Championships 2014 rules which are Double Battles using Flat Rules. Players will be split into two different ages divisions, players born in 1998 or earlier will be in the Masters divisions while anyone born in 1999 or later will be playing in the Junior/Senior divisions.

All Pokémon must be caught or bred in Kalos and be part of the Kalos Pokédex's. As with the last tournament players will only be able to battle up to 20 times a day. The only banned Pokémon are Mewtwo, Xerneas, Yveltal and Zygarde.

A new Wi-Fi tournament for owners of Pokémon X and Pokémon Y has been announced. The tournament will go by the name of 2014 April Friendly and will be using single battle rules. All Pokémon from the Kalos Pokédex will be able to take part, including legendaries such as Xerneas and Yveltal. All Pokémon must have been bred or caught in Kalos, Pokémon transferred using Pokémon Bank are not allowed.

Registration for the tournament opens on the 17th of April and closes on the 24th. Battles will take place from the 25th of April through to the 28th. Players can play 20 battles per day.

Early this morning Nintendo announced a brand new tournament for Pokémon X and Pokémon Y owners in the UK. The tournament will take place in GAME stores and shopping centres across the UK between the 1st of March and the 5th of April, with a grand final being held in London on the 26th of April.

The tournament will be using the official VGC 2014 rules and will be single elimination knock-out. Four different groups will be held at each regional tournament with the winner of each group then getting to take part in the championship in London. The groups are as follows:

Ultimate Pokémon Expert group for players 13 and over. The prize for winning this group at the championship will give you a week-long trip to Japan and a pass to the second round in the VGC event in May.

Junior Pokémon Expert group for players 12 and under. The prize for...

Due to positive reception and the arrival of Pokemon Bank today, the Insane Calculation tournament has officially received the go-ahead. The rules are as follows, some of which have been directly taken from the previous topic:

The rules are similar to the Alphabet Soup tournament held back in Gen IV but, hence the name, a fair bit more complicated. It's 3vs3 singles again, mainly so that people don't have to breed and train too many Pokemon right away, and instead of just letters, you'll be receiving three separate characteristics for each individual Pokemon in your team, for example:

Pokemon 1 must be a Grass-type. Dual-typed Pokemon do count as long as one of their types is Grass-type.
Pokemon 2 must not be blue in colour. If the Pokemon's shiny colouration is not blue but the regular form is blue, only the shiny form can be used and vice versa.
Pokemon 3's species name must contain more than five letters.

The rules for the next season of the Pokémon Video Game Championships have been revealed. Not many changes have come into effect, and any that have were mostly expected, but nevertheless this is how our 2014 rules look:

Battles will still be using the Double Battles format as it has done for a number of years now and we'll be using Pokémon X and Pokémon Y.

Players this year are limited to only using Pokémon from the Kalos Pokédex. So anything from #001 to #150 in the Central Kalos Pokédex, #001 to #153 in the Coastal Kalos Pokédex, and #001 to #147 in the Mountain Kalos Pokédex.

As many who have played Pokémon X and Pokémon Y know, a lot of the Pokémon found throughout the Kalos Pokédex are from past generations. However, while the Pokémon can be used in this VGC season, you can't use a Pokémon that has been transferred to Pokémon X and Pokémon Y using Pokémon Bank and Poké Transporter....